The Business School Broadcast – 16th February 2018

We may perhaps be a couple of days late reporting this, but is love still in the air? 

One of the most elusive dating tactics since the beginning of time has to be ‘playing hard to get’. While Socrates famously advised courtesan Theodote to boost her attraction by withholding her affections until men are “hungry” with desire, ‘playing hard to get’ remains a sought-after strategy many yearn to master in a romantic relationship - as shown by the prevalence of related advice on dating columns or the internet.

However, prior researches have yielded little support for the efficacy - or inefficacy - of this belief and those who had had the chances to execute the strategy in real life might realize the so-called strategy often leads to ambivalent results.

Professor Dai Xianchi of Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Business School, together with PhD student Ping Dong (now Assistant Professor of Marketing at Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University) and PhD student Jayson S. Jia of Stanford University (now Assistant Professor of Marketing at the University of Hong Kong), collaborated in a research to find out the answers.

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The Small Business Administration’s New York office is looking for local small business owners to enroll in its Emerging Leaders entrepreneurial training course.

The free seven-month long program seeks to help small businesses expand, create jobs, and innovate. Two separate sessions are being offered, one in Yonkers, and one in Manhattan.

Eligible businesses must have an annual revenue ranging between $400,000 and $10 million, be in business for at least three years, have at least one employee aside from the business owner, and the applicant must be a key decision maker in the firm.

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From professional footballer to binman, Scott Ward suffered this crushing reality after he was forced to retire as a goalkeeper because of injury.

It was only on meeting his wife, Emily, and seeing how she was doing a Business Studies degree part-time while holding down a full-time job with no support that he realised education could help him transform his life.

“She was my inspiration,” says Scott. “I needed to do something, so I had a chat with my wife and I felt doing an MBA could be the answer. By then I had been able to work in sales and strategy development so I had some experience in business.

Scott put his personal experience to good use by devoting his MBA project and dissertation to researching the cultural impact of athletes’ transition out of sport.

It has led to a position at KPMG where he has designed and is now implementing a programme to give global athletes from all sports the support they need emotionally, mentally and practically to be prepared for a new life in the ‘real world’ or while they are still competing as part of a dual career.

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The world in which we live and work is changing rapidly. We are working harder, for longer and for less money, with the ever-present fear that our jobs might be subsumed by robots in a few years.

These changing patterns of work and business and the conflicts they create are a source of fascination for Professor Peter Fleming, Professor of Business and Society at Cass Business School.

His research examines the changing relationship between business and society, with special emphasis on new patterns of conflict in the workplace, the evolution of management ideologies and the rise (and fall) of corporate social responsibility. He has also studied the causes of organisational corruption in the private and public sectors.

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London Business School (LBS) has been named the winner of the Shaping Future Governments Global Universities Challenge.

The prize was presented by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and ruler of the Emirate of Dubai, on stage at the World Government Summit Award Ceremony in Dubai on Tuesday.

This year’s topic asked students to address a hypothetical scenario set in 2031, when the UAE has positioned itself globally as No.1, and offer advice to the cabinet ministry on maintaining the nation’s prime position into 2071.

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